More Signal, Less Noise
Monday, January 17, 2005
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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 11, Issue 02 Monday, January 17, 2005
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NETSURFER LINKS
 BREAKING SURF
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BREAKING SURF The Huygens probe successfully touched down on Saturn's moon Titan Jan. 14 and returned images and other data of its descent and landing site. The photos show a landscape seemingly shaped by flowing liquid and one great shot from the surface shows a Mars-like rocky (ice rocks, presumably) surface. The landing sequence was not problem-free. One of two redundant communications channels malfunctioned, but this should have little impact on the amount of data returned - that's what redundancy is for. Spaceflight Now has an almost minute-by-minute log of the event as followed by the flight team. It also has material for subscribers only, but much of that only duplicates what's found on the ESA (Huygens probe) and NASA (Cassini spacecraft) sites. The ESA has links to video status reports and press conferences. It also has a page with sounds recorded by Huygens's microphones as it descended. If you want to play around with the raw Titan images, check out Anthony Liekens blog, which has many links to people who have done just that.Spaceflight Now: http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/status.html ESA: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html Liekens: http://anthony.liekens.net/index.php/Main/Huygens Sumatra Quake's Effect on Earth Rotation NASA scientists Richard Gross and Benjamin Fong Chao have calculated that the Sumatra earthquake decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds and shifted the North Pole about 2.5 centimeters. The scientists compare this effect to filling the Three-Gorge reservoir of China, which would increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and shift the pole's position by about 2 centimeters. These kinds of shifts are very hard to detect in current geophysical data since the signals are dominated by other natural variations in the Earth's mass and shape, but the scientists do hope to detect the effect after reviewing the available data. Our only source for this information is a NASA press release, and we could not find any technical explanation of how the information was calculated.NASA: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-009 The CIA's National Intelligence Council has a major report that intends to explain to US policymakers how the world will evolve over the next decades. The report is based on a series of conferences attended by regional experts around the world, and tackles issues such as globalization, evolution and retrenchment of democracy, and rise of transnational entities. The report explores several possible futures with names like "Davos World", "Pax Americana", and "A New Caliphate". It makes for fascinating reading. Perhaps the most omnipresent theme is the ascent of central Asia - the 21st century will likely belong to China and India. An interactive Web site, International Futures, is associated with the report, but it is little more than an interactive spreadsheet model which at press time was only working intermittently. If you're in a hurry, read the executive summary - it's worth it. CIA: http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_2020_project.html International Futures: http://ifsmodel.org/ What do you believe even though you cannot prove it? That was Edge's question to 120 scientists, engineers, and other intellectuals, and their answers make for some fascinating reading. The diverse responses are difficult to summarize, but some of the more notable include Jared Diamond's belief that humans only relatively recently arrived in the Americas and Australia, Anton Zeilinger's belief that quantum physics renders the distinction between information and reality empty, and Ian Wilmut's belief that adult stem cells can change phenotype. None of this is possible to prove at our current level of knowledge, but it does make great reading and it's refreshing to see that even researchers on the cutting edge of knowledge production believe in things they cannot prove. http://www.edge.org/ Robert X. Cringely is at it again, making predictions for 2005. He claims an accuracy rate of 73% for his 2004 predictions, and we've accepted that. He doesn't aim far, but he aims accurately. He opens 2005 with a bold note: Microsoft will flop in the anti-virus business. His other predictions include some great ones, including Apple taking a huge gamble. Cringely suggested that Apple take a loss on each new Mac mini, but that didn't pan out. Read on for one road to the future. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050107.html If This Is January, This Must Be MacWorld Steve Jobs and by extension Apple have turned MacWorld Expos into showcases for new products. This month's furthered the trend. Apple announced two new pieces of hardware: a memory-stick-like $99 iPod shuffle and the Mac mini. An iPod's an iPod, but the Mac mini is revolutionary. It's a tiny desktop G4 roughly half the size of a tissue box for $499. The base model, and we mean base, comes with no keyboard, mouse, or monitor, and only 256 MB of RAM. The Mac mini targets Windows users, either those who are sick of dealing with viruses and spyware or those who've always wanted to try a Mac but were put off by the price. The Mac mini only really makes sense for Windows users who already have the peripherals. Anyone starting from scratch would be better advised to get an eMac. The Mac mini comes stuffed with a suite of software that makes the price even more attractive. We think, like Cringely (q.v.), that Apple should have priced it even lower, at a loss, to further expand market share, especially considering the company's $6 billion in reserves and further $295 million in profit last quarter. Ars Technica has a walkabout of MacWorld Expo while macCentral and CNET look at the Mac mini.Keynote: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/mwsf05/ iPod Shuffle: http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/ Mac mini: http://www.apple.com/macmini/ Ars Technica: http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/mwsf-2005.ars MacCentral: http://www.macworld.com/2005/01/news/minioverview/index.php CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-5535728.html The Inside Game of File Piracy If you want to know how the piracy community works, you must read this Wired article on the piracy "darknet", the clandestine and illegal cyberworld where file sharing is the game and being the first to spread a file is the way to win. This network of about three dozen sites is hidden from end-users. Only a few people access the pirate servers, which serve as the source of most of the files end-users can find later on more popular file-sharing networks. The peer-to-peer (P2P) networks Hollywood complains about and sometimes sues are at the bottom of the piracy pyramid. By the time everyone can get a copy of "The Terminal", the pirates are already looking for something new. Somehow, Wired correspondent Jeff Howe got the pirates to talk and reveal how insiders provide the original materials that filter down to the rest of us on P2P networks. Hollywood should look inside before it shuts down all the file-sharing networks.http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/topsite.html So you've got 200 CDs and a new iPod Shuffle and you want to put your music into electronic format. Sure, the easy thing is to just pop the CDs in and let iTunes import your music with default settings, but if you're somewhat of an audiophile you may wish to be a bit more discerning in exactly how you rip your music. That's what this guide is all about. There is a dizzying array of format options for ripping CDs, and unless you're a professional or spend an inordinate amount of time following the arcane debates on the topic, it's difficult to sort them all out. This guide from Ars Technica is clearly meant for the person who wants to take the time to explore beyond the iTunes defaults. It does a good, not too technical job of explaining various formats and recommending music ripping/encoding software. Even if you settle for the defaults, it's worth knowing your options. http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/encoding.ars As an NSD reader, you know what blogs are - but 62% of Americans don't, at least not yet. That's just one of the findings in this short Pew Internet & American Life Project review of recent survey results about blogging. Fortunately for bloggers, blog readers are more numerous than they are and are their numbers are increasing faster. The survey revealed that 27% of Internet users read blogs, an increase of 58% during the past year. As you'd expect, bloggers tend to be young, Web-savvy, well educated, and comparatively well off. One stat to note is the use of RSS aggregators to keep up with blogs and other Web sites, a value that is expected to grow rapidly from its current 5% of Internet users. We know from NSD's own survey last year that RSS remains an obscure technology. RSS users are typically Internet veterans with heavy use of online news. Short, pithy, and informative, the Pew piece is a clear window on the blogosphere. http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp No question about it, the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is huge - five and a half days' immersion into plasma screens and all other things techie. Engadget was there, from the keynote performances by Bill Gates and Conan O'Brien to the final gasp. With photos, video, and snappy commentary, Engadget's band of roving reporters keeps you informed of the latest and greatest and less than greatest ("the PR rep told us to be extremely careful not to damage or break this jacket designed for extreme sportsters") of this year's offerings without drowning you in data. Stick with the photos and text, and you'll be fine. http://ces.engadget.com/ Gates Attacks Commie Open-Sourcers, Blue-Screens Xbox on Stage Bill Gates had a heck of a time at CES. Conan O'Brien claimed that he tied one on and ended up in bed with an iBook, and pretty much the whole Net snickered after Gates's Xbox demo went all blue screen of death on him (see Engadget's covereage of the keynote). Perhaps the topper came in Gates's interview with CNET, which he used merely to push his vision of a completely connected environment incorporating telephony, video, photos, music, gaming, and more - all delivered through a Microsoft interface, of course. Gates really put his foot in it when he referred to backers of intellectual-copyright reform as "modern-day sort of communists", touching off a backlash that had some pointing to just how out of touch he is in terms of open-source and sampling, for example. A few entrepreneurs are trying to make a few bucks with T-shirts imprinted with a "Creative Commies" logo, Wired reports. And before you could say Boing Boing, one had 250 orders in his lap. To paraphrase a great line by former Texas governor Anne Richards, "Poor o' Billy; he cain't help it - he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."Engadget: http://ces.engadget.com/entry/1234000293026218/ CNET: http://news.com.com/2008-1041_3-5514121.html http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66209,00.html Boing Boing: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/06/more_gates_creative_.html The file-traders-as-commies comment by Bill Gates (q.v.) is a genuine Internet meme, a fact which has not been lost on the man himself. That's one of the things Gates comments on in his interview with an unidentified bearded guy from Gizmodo. The short interview (for some reason split into four parts) ranges widely, covering Gates's thoughts on the direction of Microsoft after Longhorn, Mac software, and his explanation of the "communist" comment. Gates is a smart guy and his comments are worth reading, but he may get into trouble again by comparing art consumers to people who drive 80 mph in a parking lot with Microsoft's DRM technology as speedbumps in their way. Gizmodo: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/gmoney-and-me-bill-gates-interview-029198.php Technorati Introduces Tagging Technology Technorati, a search engine for blogs, has introduced support for tags in blogs to allow users to categorize their blog entries and share those categories with others. Tags let blog writers add metadata to their posts, basically a short bit of HTML around a word or a phrase, and submit the post via the blog "ping" mechanism to Technorati. Technorati in turn builds up a database of those tags and allows you to search for blogs via a tag. Tags support the popular meta-tagging sites Flickr and Del.icio.us, allowing you to tag images and bookmarks. With tags, Technorati is trying to enlist a vast army of bloggers to categorize their posts but it's not clear that this will be more effective than machine-generated search indexes, and the mechanism will fall victim to spammers two minutes ago. Nevertheless, it's a pretty clever attempt and already popular. Technorati's Tags page lists the most popular recent tags. Technorati has also just announced winners of its Developer's Contest for its programming interface. Grand-prize winner Govtrack.us uses the Technorati API to show what bloggers are saying about bills as they work their way through Congress.Tags: http://www.technorati.com/tag/ Developer's Contest: http://www.technorati.com/developers/contest.html The Dakar Rally is the most famous desert race in the world, a grueling ordeal of multiple stages that starts in Spain and runs through five countries in northwest Africa. It takes specially hardened cars, motorcycles, and trucks to make it through the ordeal, which is a proving ground for automotive engineering in extreme conditions. The race can be deadly. Italian off-road hero Fabrizio Meoni was killed in a serious crash during the 11th stage. This year's 8,956-km race ended in Dakar Jan. 16. The BBC has decent coverage in its motorsport section, while VL of Sport has numerous links to resources on the sport of rallying in general. If you're interested in the technology, check out the excellent "Race and Rally Car Source Book: A D.I.Y. Guide to Building or Modifying a Race or Rally Car". Dakar Rally: http://www.dakar.com/ BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/default.stm VL of Sport: http://sportsvl.com/wheel/rallying.htm "Race and Rally Car Source Book": http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0854295720/netsurferdigest US Releases New Dietary Guidelines Every five years, the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services release an updated set of guidelines on what and how Americans should eat. They base the guidelines on medical consensus and try to avoid pandering to fad diets. The latest revision, released last week, addresses a widely acknowledged epidemic of chronic diseases, the result of poor diet and lack of physical activity among Americans. The guide includes advice for specific populations (e.g. pregnant women, older adults), advice for weight management and physical activity, and advice on specific food groups and food safety.http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/ Consumer Reports (CR) is famous for its objective reviews. This one, however, isn't about cars or detergents, but about condoms. And whereas most CR articles are available online only to subscribers, anyone can view this one - as a public service, we assume - complete with story, ratings, information about birth control choices, and a comparative guide to contraception. Condoms, CR points out, are the only method of contraception that also helps prevent sexually transmitted diseases. CR's report evaluates 23 latex and two polyurethane condoms and ranks them in terms of quality and reliability. It found that strength differs, size matters, and choosing brands with spermicide isn't recommended. Durex and Trojan products rank near the top. Apparently, the best test of a condom's ruggedness is to inflate it until it pops. The best easily hold 25 liters of air. If that provokes a titter, the rest of this is pretty sober. CR criticizes the fact sheet issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which, it suggests, has fallen victim to ideology. Not so this report. http://tinyurl.com/5ggv5 Long before Henry Higgins bemoaned the inability of the English to speak their own language and set a good example, grammarians and language purists fretted over the state of language skills. Today, competent speech and writing matter more than ever yet such skills are too often glaringly absent in much of what we hear and read. The surprising success of "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" and the grammar revival that book spawned prompted this engaging and persuasive essay by University of Oxford professor Richard Jenkyns. He points out that the abuse of language is hardly restricted to the badly educated. Politicians, copywriters, and academics of all stripes daily perpetrate linguistic crimes, leading to imprecision and vagueness. Stumble-tongued speakers and inept writers litter all media. Anyone who has struggled to persuade someone - usually a young someone - to abandon using "like" will understand how tough it can be to recognize and jettison bad language influences. Is there hope, or is the grammar craze merely the work of reformers reduced to stabbing hopelessly with sticks in a vast sea of refuse? Jenkyns believes that there is indeed a "hunger to be serious" about language and that the books themselves are in some ways, however imperfectly, a sign of deep caring. http://prospectmagazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=6608 Ron Avitzur relates his incredible tale of stealth, intrigue, programming, and bureaucracy, one like none you've ever read before except perhaps in fiction. Avitzur worked on the Mac's Graphing Calculator, which in the early 1990s was born, then killed, then born again - in secrecy. Unable to let his baby be bygones, he and a cohort continued to sneak into Apple after his contract ended to work on the package. They were able to pull it off because they had no managers in the loop. No managers means no meetings means extreme productivity. They just snuck on in and kept plugging away. It's amusing to note that even in so-called cutting-edge companies, bureaucrats are the same. The only thing accounting for the successful fruition of the program was lax security - which, as the author ruefully notes, is not the case for Microsoft. Slashdot has feedback, unsurprisingly. Avitzur: http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ Slashdot: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/22/0146243 ONLINE CULTURE Delving into its massive Usenet archive, Google has released a timeline of Usenet history with dates and links to historically significant posts. There are many examples of first mentions of modern icons: Microsoft (1981), the Macintosh (1982), and Star Wars Episode 6 (1982). Other posts mark cultural icons, some popular (Madonna; 1983), some milestones of Usenet culture (first "me too" post; 1983), and others part of our ubiquitous modern online experience (first mass spam; 1994). It's a great bit of history, but it suffers by lack of context. There is little to indicate why some of these posts were historic, and unless you're familiar with Usenet history and culture some of these may not make much sense. There's also the problem of Usenet graffiti - all threads are technically still live, and some wiseguys have started posting to them again (see the Linux announcement as an example). We know what you're thinking - what about NSD? Here is the post which first mentions Netsurfer Digest on Usenet, and probably not exactly in the context you would expect.Google: http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html NSD: http://tinyurl.com/6tcbf Take Part in a Pew Survey on the Net and the Future Would you like to see into the future without the help of a flux capacitor? The Pew Internet & American Life Project would, and it wants your help in predicting the effect of the Internet on society over the next ten years. This is the second time it has compiled such predictions and it hopes to add to its existing database of concepts and forecasts for research purposes. The survey takes about 25 minutes to complete and tries to gauge the effect the Net will have on issues such as families, religion, health, and the arts. It also asks for comment on various farfetched and likely predictions about the Net's influence on specific issues. This survey is your chance to voice your fears and hopes about the Net, not to mention serving a valuable purpose as a prompt to your own thoughts and debates on the topics raised.http://surveys.spss-sb.com/spssmr/survey/surveyentry.aspx?project=p3280003 How do people actually navigate around Web sites? This is an important issue for Web designers, who expend a great deal of effort and angst on all sorts of navigation designs to ease use or maximize ad revenue. Much of this may be in vain because it seems that most people pretty much ignore Web page navigation schemes and instead opt for the back button a lot. Danish designer Henrik Olsen pulls together some data on the subject and reports that users are very goal directed. A user typically heads right for the meat of whatever online goodies they need, and if they don't find what they want, they hit the back button. That's a generalization, but you can read the details in Olsen's essay, which is of interest to anybody in Web design. Olsen's GUUUI blog has many more essays on a variety of related issues. http://www.guuui.com/issues/01_05.php
SURFING SITES Although it's a lifetime or two behind us, the third decade of the 20th century is still very much with us, often in ways we forget. Think of immigration quotas, Social Security, or Albert Einstein. America in the 1930s is a painless, intriguing way to review history, thanks to wide rearview mirrors in the Department of American Studies at the University of Virginia. Twelve timelines of the years 1929-1940 highlight politics, science, and technology as well as arts and culture. Stalin, Lindbergh, Earhart - celebrities of the day appear in the timelines like milestones, reminders that today's culture of personality and media-driven view of history started well before John F. Kennedy and the Beatles. The main focus of this site, in fact, is on media and pop culture. Most visitors will probably jump first into the section on film. What a blast! "Duck Soup", "Little Caesar", "Citizen Kane" - the site knows how to ring bells. Journalism teachers and students will also be drawn to the retrospectives on radio (e.g. "War of the Worlds", Superman, and jazz) and print (e.g. advertising, Babe Ruth, and Diego Rivera). Did we mention the Great Depression? Hoover Dam? Johnson's Baby Powder?http://xroads.virginia.edu/~1930s/front.html The GI Roundtable Series and Postwar Society Facing uncertain morale of the men in uniform, wanting to avoid the mistakes made when the army of the First World War was demobilized, and taking advantage of the relatively new science of social psychology, the US Army in 1943 commissioned the American Historical Society (AHA) to create a series of pamphlets which would deal with the issues returning vets would face. The issues ranged from local social issues, such as jobs, to global events with sophisticated historical and economic backgrounds. The pamphlets, to be the basis for small discussion groups, were called the GI Roundtable Series. The AHA has recreated all 48 pamphlets along with the background material concerned with the decision to write and publish them. There's also a long analysis of the methods and supposed motives of the AHA and the army, mainly to ameliorate social discontent. The AHA makes much of the fact that the program director had been interested in eugenics early in his career. By all accounts, the pamphlets had no effect on the troops, so their true historical value is primarily as a portrait of social values at the time. It turns out that the re-absorption of 11 million veterans was successful simply because the GIs were getting on with their lives as they themselves saw fit. Perhaps a more balanced view of so-called social engineering by the US Army should mention the highly successful "Why We Fight" film series and the post-war GI Bill.http://www.historians.org/projects/GIRoundtable/index.html The old Soviet military handed out medals as Western militaries used campaign ribbons. That's one reason why generals in the Red Army often looked like Christmas trees. On the other hand, fighting on the Eastern Front in World War II was no picnic, so the heroism was as real as can be. The Soviet Union also awarded medals to civilians for things like giving birth - the Motherhood Medal, First Class (for 6 or more children) and Second Class (5 children), for example. If you have a historical interest in such things, the Soviet Military Awards Page is for you. Every title, medal, and order is listed with multiple and enlargeable views. The site notes the basis for awarding each medal and the benefits that the winner accrued, and supplies a rarity key to let you know your chances of actually finding the medal in question. Sales are handled in the Forum. In addition, there is a page of links to other Web sites that deal with Russian militaria and military heroism. http://www.soviet-awards.com/index.htm If you're a toy-soldier collector, a miniatures wargamer, or you simply want to revisit the toys you enjoyed so much as a child, Plastic Soldier Review is a site you'll want to bookmark and/or spend a pleasant afternoon at. For the uninitiated, 1:72 scale toy soldiers are military figures around 1" (25 mm) tall, and they come in a wide variety of eras, armies, poses, etc.. The soldiers are widely used for war games and battle dioramas. This site seems to feature just about every 1:72 figure ever manufactured; soldier sets are lovingly displayed and reviewed, organized by era (i.e. Napoleonic, WWII, etc.) or by manufacturer. There are a slew of other helpful features, such as links to manufacturers, pages on scale, notes on future releases, and related items. Our reviewer, who was a childhood collector of Airfix 1:72 soldiers, found Plastic Soldier Review to be not only an enjoyable trip down memory lane but also a thoroughly professional and serious source of information on the hobby. Now if only he could remember where he hid that diorama when he went off to college.... http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Index.html Whether you think metrosexual is a way for straight people to co-opt the bits of gay culture they like or a much-needed classification for well-heeled men (and by that we mean ones in Bruno Maglis) who aren't ashamed to have dirt-free nails, this site should tickle your funny bone. The Metrosexual Tarot is the latest creation of Thomas Scoville, who sounds like a furniture store but is in fact the man who brought us the Silicon Valley Tarot, and Hughes Hall, who is not where our reviewer spent her freshman year in college even if he has the same name. Together, Scoville and Hall (again, not knick-knack emporium) have completed the Major Arcana, including the Loft and the Personal Trainer, and are well on their way to filling out the suits: clubs (as in martini), forks, potions (as in botox), and shoes. http://www.thomasscoville.com/metrosexual/ Greedo Assassination Conspiracy Most people know more about "Star Wars" than about their elected representatives. In Star Wars reality, most things are cut if not dried. However, dating all the way back to the wonderful and sorely missed Mos Eisley cantina is The Question. Who killed J.R.? Oops, sorry, we meant how did Greedo miss Han? Yes, Greedo the inept bounty hunter who tried to off Han Solo over the small matter of Jabba's lost cargo - well, at least that's the story in George Lucas's revised scene. It would appear that Greedo missed at very short range, but why? At the Greedo Assassination Conspiracy Page, you may learn of others' doubts, and maybe of answers. Was Lee Harvey Oswald's cousin on the sandy knoll overlooking the bar? Who really caused the death of Greedo? Huh?http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/polisci/faculty/rexb/greedo.html The bits of animation at Dog Judo are quite well done and more episodes are planned. Virgin Mobile is among the major sponsors of the site, so one can imagine that it'll be up for a while. Starring primarily "Barking" Bob Jones and "Ruff" Rex Hunter as the two judo-loving dogs, the opening sequence is particularly touching as Bob chats with his lady friend over a glass of wine and is subsequently ambushed from behind by the wily Rex. Oh, wait - that was last week. This week, Rex performs a series of jumps sans pants. http://www.dogjudo.co.uk/pure.aspx Get your gastronomical dreams fulfilled at Cooking with Rockstars. Well, "rockstars" may be pushing it - the chefs in question more comfortably fit into the indie rock genre, although Jack Black is nonetheless a Big Name. Like the others, Black shares his culinary secrets here. The associated QuickTime videos sometimes yield hysterically funny insights. You get recipes, along with links to the performers, discographies, and occasionally more. http://www.thejenvilleshow.com/ Turn Rover into ribeye? Fluffy into flank steak? In some regions, dog is fair game for human consumption. DeliciousDogs.com is devoted to this controversial subject. Its two main courses: news (links to relevant items on other sites) and forums. Through one of its news items, we learned that last fall the Cambodia Daily ran a report in which the mayor of Phnom Penh urged Cambodians to eat dog meat because "dog meat is so delicious." Another news item links to an equally brief offsite item about two Germans who wrote a dogmeat cookbook. If the thought of man's best friend on your best china galls you, avoid the Recipes forum, which offers tasty reflections such as "'Pupperoni' Pizza", "Mole Poblano with Chihuahua", and "Bull Dog Dumplings." We have to laugh at the FAQ, which claims the site is impartial: "This site does not encourage the consumption of dog meat. Nor does it discourage the consumption of dog meat. DeliciousDogs.com is simply a place for people to get together and talk about what they love most - dogs!" On the other hand, it concludes: "Pig always tastes like pig, cow like cow and chicken like chicken. Dog meat varies enough that you can constantly enjoy different tastes, all of which are strikingly good." No one on the Internet knows you're dog meat. http://www.deliciousdogs.com/index.php In past NSDs, we've showcased some truly unique and strange online collections, and now the Hand Collector joins that illustrious line-up. The purveyor of this site has amassed over 100 images of hands and is, we're sure, always looking for a few people to lend a hand. The hand photos are submitted by netsurfers from around the world; each image boasts a unique style and flavor that surely could tell a story or two about the person attached to it. For details on how you can lend a hand visit the Contact and FAQ pages. Don't bother sending images of any other body parts, as the hand collector just isn't interested. http://www.robottle.com/hands/ If only the algorithm was more obvious. Or explained better. Or explained at all. The Sockman Calculator, based on the merest data point, your age, claims to accurately calculate how many pairs of socks you have worn in your lifetime, and far more important, how many pair you have owned. We've all been around people who clearly have owned many pair, but rarely worn them. Now we have data to back up our demands for sanitary foot conditions. That's something that will benefit all. Given the need to hide the algorithm, we can only hope for a Sockman Calculator 2.0, with input fields for socks vanished in washing machines and socks chewed by overly friendly companion animals. By the way, if the calculator refuses to let you lower your age to get a more positive spin on your sock consumption, just surf elsewhere and surf back. http://www.renfro.com/consumer/Renfro/funstuff/sockcalculator/index.html All Kinds of Automotive Tidbits If you love cars in any shape and form, Jalopnik is for you. It gathers all the motoring news worldwide, beefs up the engine, cuts down on the marketing emissions, and tunes in some quirky torque tidbits about Paul Newman racing at Daytona and a Ferrari demo being thwarted by a dead battery. The result is cutting-edge commentary on automobile news with an editorial style akin to that used by the deadpan frontman of BBC's "Top Gear", Jeremy Clarkson. If you want to know about the future of motoring, this is the place to hang out, even if you know you'll never be able to afford a solar-powered jeep or a wicked cool, polished aluminum Ford Shelby GR-1. If you're just seeking the car gadget for the geek who has everything, look no further than Jalopnik's features on kit cars. You can now build a retro hot-rod or even a Lamborghini Diablo out of a box, and we're talking life-size here.http://www.jalopnik.com/ Although a treasure-trove of information can be found on the Internet, much of it is - gasp! - erroneous. The issue is even worse for folks raising herps - as those in the know call reptiles - as so much information is simply wrong. We're happy to be able to point out a gem amid the dross. While geared toward the green iguana, it offers great insights regarding herp care in general. The site features extensive bibliographic and photographic references, and professionals and hobbyists alike would do well to bookmark it. We were drawn to the X-Rays page, but we're geeky that way. http://www.milagros.net/caiman/ Teaching Is a Gift, and Doesn't Always Lead to a Good One The apple has long been regarded as a classic gift for teachers, but in this age of consumer commodities an apple seems so cliche. With that in mind, what exactly do students give to teachers as gifts these days? This online shrine to student gift-giving presents some of the kitschiest gifts received by teachers around the world. Presented in six different galleries, these gifts range from the mildly amusing to the outright bizarre. Perhaps even more amusing than the gifts is the tongue-in-cheek tone of the entire site, particularly Aunty Wensleydale's Problem Page. Cheesy Gifts for Teachers will surely provide some educators with a creative solution for those wonderful, but cheesy gifts from students.http://www.cheesygifts4teachers.fsnet.co.uk/cheese1.htm If you didn't get enough sparkly lights and inflatable Santas over the holidays, you can relive the best of the 2004 light show at UglyChristmasLights.com. By best, naturally, we mean that house (you know the one) that will single-handedly generate several electric-company employees' holiday bonuses. The site doesn't simply focus on the Christmas displays that can be seen from space, however. It also delves into the ironic and just plain odd - e.g. in what alternate universe could Santa possibly play see-saw with one of his elves? We saw an idea on there we're thinking about for next year, but when you string your lights across your yard, it makes mowing pretty dicey. http://www.uglychristmaslights.com/ Ever get a simple research question from a friend or colleague and think "I wish they would just look that up on Google and stop bugging me?" Thanks to the unimaginatively named Just Fucking Google It, you can direct them to the research site that will get them off your back, at least for a minute or two. This simple two-pager explains in English clear enough even for a search-engine virgin why you have sent them the link and why they should now proceed to do the research for themselves at a certain search engine. This is the modern equivalent of the instruction to RTFM and we all wish it weren't needed, but it is. The site-owner comments that the popularity of the site astounds him, but it comes as no surprise to us - we're so sadly cynical after years of daft questions. View the page source for a link to an e-mail archive. http://www.fuckinggoogleit.com/ CelebSafari boasts impromptu celebrity snapshots of some of the most famous Hollywood stars to grace screen or electromagnetic spectrum. The content of the site is completely community driven, submitted by registered users. If a photo looks like a fake or is in bad taste, the community will vote to have the photo permanently removed from the site. Some of the famous faces you'll see here include Angelina Jolie, Ray Charles, and a host of others. All celebs appear with fans. Those with a romantic view of Hollywood will find this site a humbling experience. Not all celebrities are as beautiful and perfect as they appear in carefully mastered photo ops or on screen. http://celebsafari.com/ If you're a fan of the Flash animated Haunted Hospital we covered in NSD 9.32, be sure to check out this similar online adventure game, entitled 99 Rooms. Using a backdrop of abandoned and decrepit buildings splashed with morbidly curious characters and sinister music, 99 Rooms is a dark adventure that may raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Be advised that if you're interested in finishing the game, you'll have to visit - duh - 99 rooms and so you'll have to devote more than just a few minutes of play time. http://99rooms.terracontent.de/ FLOTSAM & JETSAM Are you ready to confront the Rorschach carrot? (Clearly, it's a naked mole rat.) How about spooky cereal? Albino twin Gummy Bears? All those and more stare out at you from the pages of the Museum of Food Anomalies. Your fridge will never look quite the same.http://www.hanttula.com/exhibits/freakyfood/index.htm This annual tradition should really be called the List of Banished Phrases. These are utterances you should not under any circumstances utter in 2005. So, no more "wardrobe malfunctions" or "battleground states" or "carbs" or even the old favorite "erectile dysfunction". Mildly amusing. http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php The 250 Versions of "The House of the Rising Sun" "There was a house in New Orleans..." - oops, is that a lawyer at our door? Well, they can't really nail this Russian site, which has a collection of 250 versions of the venerable song. The Doors version is still the best, though.http://kiv.pp.ru/cgi-bin/index-house Fimoculous offers more than 500 lists of all kinds: best of, worst of, choice of, most of. Some tease you (The Year in Bad Sex), some please you (Best Undressed), some spook you (Top Cryptozoology Stories), and some just plain old annoy you (Most and Least Annoying Person). The hours just fly by.... http://www.fimoculous.com/year-review-2004.cfm Now we know what Swedes do those long winter nights. They cleverly use gingerbread to model the innards of a computer. We would venture to guess it's probably about as edible as the real thing. http://www.mediatinker.com/blog/archives/008798.html#008798 Santa is kind of a scary figure - that big white beard, that big belly, that alarming red suit.... What better proof than this collection of photos of kids terrified by ol' St. Nick? http://www.southflorida.com/events/sfl-scaredsanta,0,2245506.photogallery Young girls and maybe a few boys of yesteryear will remember fondly the childhood game called MASH (Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House). What will life be like when you grow up? http://www.playmash.com/ SOFTWARE Microsoft Releases Malware/Spyware Removal Tools After years of pretty much ignoring the problems, Microsoft has finally released tools to deal with viruses and spyware. The Malicious Software Removal (MSR) tool is a straightforward virus checker that you can run from Microsoft's Web site, through Windows Update, or as a standalone application. The AntiSpyware tool, still in beta, is a downloadable program that scans for spyware and warns about ways in which spyware commonly infects your machine. Both tools are getting generally good reviews online, though some of the commercial tools available out there seem to have bigger and more up-to-date databases of malware/spyware to back them up. They can't hurt and may help, so give both a try.MSR: http://www.microsoft.com/security/malwareremove/default.mspx AntiSpyware: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx Yahoo Desktop Search, Google Search Appliance Yahoo has released a beta of its Desktop search tool. Unlike Google's similar application, Yahoo Desktop supports over 200 different file types. That's not as impressive as it sounds. In addition to the usual suspects (Microsoft Office documents and text files), it lets you search such esoteric files as Novell Perfect Works docs, Mosaic Twin Version 2.5 spreadsheets, and GEM Paint images - stuff nobody uses anymore. It's free for Windows XP/2000. Meanwhile, Google has released a very different type of desktop search: a complete rack-mountable server for about $5,000, designed for organizations that need to index up to 50,000 documents. Just point this Google Mini (mini - the new buzz word of 2005) at your docs and you end up with a search engine based on them. We wonder how many of these will sell, considering that in about six months, you'll be able to do something similar with a $499 Mac mini, Apple's Searchlight technology, and some trivial scripting to hook it up to Apache.Yahoo Desktop: http://desktop.yahoo.com/ Google Mini: http://www.google.com/enterprise/mini/=20 |
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